


Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

by orphan_account



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, and hes fucked up by his dad, hes just.. a bastard., my micah isnt racist or as openly sexist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:48:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26743141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Micah never did have a good dad.
Relationships: Micah Bell/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

**Author's Note:**

> I always feel bad making micah/arthur content becuase well, micah is terrible? hes awful? i wanna make it clear canon micah is genuinely terrible. this micah is more of a mixed bag as far as morals than whats in canon.

The campfire was roaring, Javier plucking away a lovely tune on his guitar, the entire gang surrounding the flickering flames, singing and hollering and getting shitfaced like the family they were.

And Micah, the family that wasn’t any part of him, strayed onwards. Avoiding any and all contact as much as he could. Jack was retrieved safely, not that he held any real preference whether or not they got him back. ‘That’s a lie’ a voice sounding feminine, gentle, familiar and motherly and yet so distant in his mind. No, no. He could sell himself the lie he often did, that he didn’t care, that he didn’t want any part of the Van Der Linde Family, only the Van Der Linde Gang. But the more he always caught himself interacting, scolding himself for attentively listening in on Hosea’s old stories, laughing drunk and silly with Javier. He could lie, but deep down he knew: he was slowly getting attached.

He hated it.

He crumpled the cigarette he was chewing more so than smoking, and scowled. Was it a surprise, really? He’d never had any real family, his brother a connection he rarely interacted with. Sent letters, sure, but up until a few weeks ago he’d only get a cold response. His mother, long since dead, murdered in the happy kitchen he’d once cooked with her in, stabbed and beaten to death on the oak flooring by his father. And his father…

His father. Anxiety, or something too close for comfort to it, rose in his chest thinking about the man. Micah, despite being the older brother, was always the smaller, both in height and weight. He was scrawny, twig-like limbs in his years with his father. He and Amos were always left to fend for themselves as far as food, medicine, anything. It’s what Micah the second believed in, that dog-eat-dog mentality he’d so eagerly rubbed off on his sons. If his two sons, his only children, couldn’t fight to survive in this world, then they weren’t fit to live. And what was the punishment for not doing a job well done, not doing exactly what the man said, making any kind of move to piss the big man off?

Some would have called it an appropriate discipline, others would’ve been horrified. But to the both of them, the brothers torn apart, it was the daily existence.

He got it the worst. Not that Amos didn’t get it bad at times, stumbling into their shared tent with bruises on his arms and stomach, sometimes a good shiner. But he seemed to have a particular hatred for the one named after him, his rage bubbling over when he noticed how eight-year-old Micah Bell the third would shake when firing a pistol, quiver and hesitate when forced to take the lives of others, both older and younger than him. He’d remembered one night, how his father had shot a baby in it’s crib, could still hear the mother’s shrieks and heartbroken wails ringing in his ears like it’d happened only minutes ago. Micah, the one sitting alone at this late-night celebration of the son lost now found, had cried when his father did this. He tried to hide it, of course, you didn’t have a parent like his without learning how to hide things well, how to lie. That was the moment he really knew, that if pushed too hard, his father would kill him. 

That night he didn’t bother too, but the beating he got was bad enough he’d wished he had. Bad enough to where Amos had to stitch his back and shoulders with a fishing line, pop his arm back into his socket as tears ran down his bruised face. Hold him, like the pathetic excuse for a Bell his father had called him, trying his best to soothe his sibling and ease him to rest. But he didn’t rest, and when he did, he saw only his mother and that monster they both slept so close to at night. 

That night.

His breathing hitched, a wheeze caught in his lungs at his worst memory ready to resurface, ready to drive him deeper in the grave he dug himself everyday.

His father had given him odd looks, when he turned sixteen, all his mama’s hair and eyes. They didn’t celebrate, no congratulations were exchanged, though Amos did present him with a bag of candy he’d brought earlier. Despite how guarded he’d grown to be, would always be from then onwards, he’d smiled. It only got worse from there.

They slept in different tents that night, he and Amos in ones directly opposite one another, the flap to his wide open because of the heat of the summer still lingering in fall. It had been a mistake.

He heard heavy footfalls coming towards him, and went completely still. 

His breathing halted, when his face was shoved in his pillow, pitch black all around since the entrance had been tied shut.

He’d cried, sobbed, begged him to stop, but froze like a dead animal when he realised his newly bought jeans were being unbuckled.

The rest of it, he’d drowned out. When he’d woken the next morning, he burned, blood running down between his legs. Tears on his face, both dried and fresh.

Tears like now.

“S-shit.” his voice wavered, cracked like old wood. The apples of his cheeks were wet and hot now, his mouth dry, chest tight and body in a panic. He felt as if all the air had been stolen out of his lungs, like he no longer had any. His breaths came in wheezes and gasps, struggling to find his breath with the fear running cold through his veins. But no one heard, ‘no one cared’ he thought, they only continued with their party as he sat there failing to breathe.

The hand on his shoulder, though large and warm, only made his anxiety worse.

“Micah? You okay?” 

Arthur. His eyes shot up above him, seeing that hat the man always wore sporting a new little accessory, a bundle of feathers clipped together with a bronze metal band. It looked handsome, and he would idly think that again later on as he ended up admiring the owner of said hat, but now all he could focus on was the words said to him. Said to him so genuinely, nonetheless.

He and Morgan had never been on the best of terms. Not that he hadn’t expected that, He knew he wasn’t exactly the… friendliest of individuals. But over the weeks since Strawberry, since that stagecoach robbery he’d made with the fellow outlaw, they’d been on mildly better ground. But being seen with tears streaked across his face, crying over something that had happened well over a decade ago, it threatened to crumble any progress between the two.

“What-” he sucked in a breath, still feeling as if he was choking, “Whaddya wantin’ Morgan?” It came out like a hiss, but his voice cracking didn’t make it sound as abrasive as he’d hoped. The other’s eyes squinted, brow furrowed as he listened in on both the words sputtered and breaths bated. “You don’t sound good…” He sounded leery, as if afraid Micah was drunk, drunk and a violent drunk at that. “Sound like you’re about to give birth, with all this pantin’ you’re doin’.” Arthur joked lightly, expecting some sort of snarky comeback, but furrowed his brow when none came. Just more heavy breaths.

He couldn’t hold back the stray tears that stained his face, cursing under his breath when he noticed how Morgan kept eyeing him. “W-what the hell you standin’ around for?!” He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his palm, furious he’d let the prize pony of the gang see him in such a sorry-as-hell state. “Wantin’ a laugh, Morgan, is that it?!” His voice cracked again, but this time he didn’t care. His lip trembled when he thought how pathetic he must’ve looked, crying like a baby, all because his mama was dead and his daddy had hit him.

Arthur, on the other hand, felt no such qualms. Instead, he managed to surprise the ruthless gunslinger by taking a seat beside him on the back door steps, reaching into his satchel and pulling out a fresh cigar. “I ain’t laughin’ Micah,” he said as he lit a match and took a puff, “but if you wanna talk, Im’a sittin’ here waitin’.” Smoke rolled out of his nostrils, and the atmosphere surrounding the two started to untense, unwind. When Arthur heard no reply from the man slouched beside him, he rummaged around in his bag again, this time pulling out a bottle of Brandy. “Here,” he passed the stout little bottle over by its neck, “take a swig, then start tellin’ me what’s wrong.” He heard the cork squeak open as soon as he handed it over, and sighed in relief. At least he could know what the hell the other’s issue was.

Micah took a good gulp, letting the high-quality booze burn smooth down his throat, before letting loose a question of his own: “What was your father like?”

In light of the inquiry, Micah noticed some things. He didn’t tense, didn’t show any immediate fear, not like he himself did at the mention of his dad. Instead, Morgan seemed almost calm. “He wasn’t any good man…” He lamented, sucking down more smoke, letting it settle in his lungs before billowing it out of his nose. “He’d berate me all the time, tellin’ me how I wouldn’t amount to shit, how I wasn’t nothin’.” The glint in his blue-green eyes didn’t go unnoticed by his observer, filled with the kind of hate he didn’t usually see for anyone else, including himself. “I was glad when Dutch n’ Hosea found me after he was killed, beyond glad really, but… it… sticks with you. That kind of thing.” Another long sigh sounded out of the man, a plume of smoke cascading out of his mouth, and that was that. Throwing the now spent cigar to the side, he turned himself to the blonde, “That what you wanted to know?” It was mellow sounding, not loaded with any spitting venom or dripping with sarcasm. Something he could find himself getting used to in the future.

Micah cleared his throat, not sure where to tread from here. He knew Arthur absolutely wanted to know why he was sitting there shedding tears, but the answer was less than simple. “Uh-” He stuttered, scolding himself yet again for being so weak-willed. “Mine, well…” His hands fidgeted in his lap, idly playing with his fingers, feeling them grow damp and cold with sweat, slightly shaky from stress. “He, my father, he was quite the, um-” that hand, again, large and warm and rough to the touch clasped his shoulder, giving him a small pat on the back. Comforting him. Arthur Morgan was trying to comfort him. 

‘Coddle.’ A memory, a voice, deep and cruel reminded him.

But Micah, Micah-Bell-the-third not Micah-Bell-the-second, wanted it. Needed it, needed it so bad his shoulder burned and tingled at the touch. His mouth felt full of cotton balls again, choking him, the words getting jammed behind his teeth. ‘Don’t cry, don’t fucking cry’ he chided himself, feeling his eyes blur and burn hot, voice becoming less and less cocksure as the seconds ticked by. “Micah?” That hand patted his shoulder again, his name said in such a tone it was almost like the other really did care. He wanted to get angry, wanted to be violent and lash out at all the concern and care Arthur seemed to be bidding on him, but he couldn’t. Instead, he just sat there, catching his breath so easily lost.

“Calm down, Micah…” The hand rubbed his back now, and only until now did he notice how close Morgan was, side pressed flush against him as he heaved. “If you don’t wanna talk, we don’t gotta. We can just sit here, or I can leave-” “No.” His voice was still shaky, nearly trembling, but he didn’t want him to leave him here. Not when he was so close to getting it out, letting it leave his conscience. “No, stay here, I-I wanna talk.” 

He braced himself for some sort of space between them, for Arthur to simply disregard him and leave, go hunting and bring back another deer carcass or snapping turtle. But, when that didn’t happen, and Arthur only scooted himself far enough to where Micah wasn’t crowded, he continued.

“My father, he said a lot of stuff like how the world wasn’t gonna be nice to neither me or my brother, so he decided to toughen us up.” He swallowed thickly, the fireflies floating around Shady Belle a nice distraction. “My mama, she liked to keep me around in her kitchen, helpin’ out and stuff. She wasn’t no workin’ girl, but Micah the second didn’t really care, he just…” He felt a reassuring squeeze on his shoulder, urging him to keep talking. “He just… he took. That’s all he ever really did, was take. It’s what he believed in.” He heard the sound of a flask of water being opened, offered to him. He denied. “I had a lotta her features, even when I was that young she’d tell me how I was just like her…” His eyes, pale and reddened, looked across the swamps, fondness of her memory settling in his ribs. “One night… one night my father came in, coming back from town or somethin’. They got into it, she pushed him, and next thing I knew she was beaten and stabbed to death on the floor.” The words hung in the air like fog, but the other still didn’t interrupt.

“We ran for most of my life. All over the country, wherever we could cause havoc, we did. He left us to fend for ourselves, me n’ Amos. I wasn’t… I was never a very good hunter, so most’a the time I went hungry. Got real skinny, couldn’t keep up sometimes, and he… he made sure we knew not to do that.” He recalled the scar on his thigh, where his father had slashed him with a switch. The stitches never healed quite right, the arms broken and repaired with makeshift casts. 

“I got it the worst, he hated me. Sayin’ I wasn’t no proper Bell, I was weak, and pathetic, no better than a woman. He’d, he’d…” He wasn’t even at the worst part yet and he was already tearing up. “You can stop if you want.” Arthur soothed, letting Micah rest his head on his shoulder, a shuddering sigh escaping him. But he continued.

“When- when I was round’ sixteen, somethin’ like that… he started… he started givin’ me all these- these looks. He never gave me any look like it before, and I didn’t chalk it up to nothin’, but…” He sniffled, runny, clear snot trickling out of his nose, he wiped it away with his shirt sleeve. “But on my birthday, after me n’ Amos had gone off to bed, he came into my tent. He came into, i-into my tent, and he… Arthur, he-” He could feel fear, tight and tense in his throat, ready to suffocate him. The memory, the sickening feeling of having his father’s hands touch him like that, it all made him want to vomit and cry at the same time.

He readied himself for laughter, for Arthur to say something along the lines of ‘that’s what you get’, for him to berate him and call him disgusting or tainted or soiled, to feel the swamp’s stuffy night air cool his side as he felt the warm body leave him. He was ready, always ready to be hurt, but now it wasn’t the pain he was afraid of receiving, it was the loneliness that would crawl back in where the man beside him left.

One, two, three seconds he counted, waited for the cold, but it never came. Instead, he was met with more warmth. “Oh, Micah…” Arthur breathed, shocked. He was anticipating something bad, Micah Bell ll didn’t sound very savory after all, but… this? How was anyone to anticipate something like this? He shook his head, taking his hat off in the night’s heat, running a hand through his brunette hair. “I know I was sayin’ it before, but-” A sob bubbled out of the blonde beside him, seemingly broken apart by the admission. “A-Arthur-” his voice cracked to pieces, shards he couldn’t pick back up. He needed, goddamnit, he needed something, anything to take his mind of that horrible, horrible night. “H-He, He tried-” He could himself hurtling into another panic, tears dripping off his nose and jaw as he leaned over, gripping his oily hair, pulling and tugging at it to try and rip the foul memories out. 

‘The back stroking ain’t gonna help at this point.’ Arthur thought to himself as he went to lean down with Micah, elbows on his knees like the other was. “Hey, Micah?” It was spoken in such a soft way, and Micah was drawn to it like a moth to the flame. He tried to speak, tried to let the other know it was fine, but his voice was so tangled in his throat he could just barely manage to lift his head. “Micah, I’m here, alright?” Carefully, slowly as to not startle the panicked gunslinger, he slowly clasped his shoulder, trying to pull him up. “It’s okay, you ain’t gotta sit all the way out here, by yourself.” Morgan kept his voice steady and calm, almost as if he were speaking to a skittish horse. “He…” he swallowed down the aftertaste of whiskey, not sure where he should navigate to calm the other down. His jaw set, “He ain’t here, okay? He ain’t here. It’s just you n’ me, that bastard ain’t gonna hurt you no more.” He stated it as if it were fact, and… in some ways it was, and in some ways it wasn’t, but Micah accepted the embrace Arthur gave him like a man thirsting for water.

Strong, sure arms wrapped around him, pulling him in close. The sounds of drinking had finally stopped, the late hours of the night settling in and forcing everyone to either pass out on the ground below or scavenge for a bed. Days, no, half an hour ago he would’ve been laughing at himself for huddling so close to Arthur, calling himself a pathetic little woman. But Arthur was so warm, so warm and so intent on pulling him close, letting him rest his head on his shoulder as he sobbed. He didn’t care, not now. All he wanted was for the intrusive thoughts to go away, so he could be in the present and not over a decade in the past.

“Sh, easy, Micah…” by now the other was practically sitting in his lap, face smushed into his neck, where he could feel the hot tears seeping into his skin. His shoulders shook, and breath still sounded like it wasn’t quite reaching him, so Arthur pulled back. For a split second, the other panicked, hands gripping his scout jacket and refusing to be dragged away from the comforting area. Arthur collected himself from the tears that had caught in his own eyes, “Micah. Breathe, with me, alright?” He took in a long breath, watched as Micah struggled, but copied him after a few seconds. Then, out it all came, a massive sigh leaving his parted lips. And again, in and out, in and out, in and out, until the two were breathing in unison. Tears dried on his face, made bits of his mustache stick together as he stared at Arthur.

“You don’t gotta be by yourself.” that hand again, calloused and rough but so gentle held his own, rubbing careful circles just above the knuckles. “If you wanna talk about things, you can come to me, n’ I’ll listen. Okay?” He released another sigh, admiring how well Micah fit in his lap, and nosed at his blonde hair, trying his best to comfort the smaller man. “I ain’t… I ain’t gonna make fun of you er nothin’, Micah. You don’t need to be afraid, I’ve been there too.” Arthur’s low, rumbling voice made his stomach flutter, he didn’t realise how close the two were, but then… well, he was situated awfully comfortable in the man’s broad lap. His face dusted pink, and as minorly embarrassed as he was, he didn’t move an inch. Instead, he shoved his head underneath the man’s scruffy chin, claiming it as his sleeping area for the night.

“M’kay…” he slurred, exhaustion overtaking and fogging his mind.


End file.
